One Health is the collaborative effort of multiple disciplines working locally, nationally, and globally to attain sustainable optimal health for the ecosystem*. It is a cultural and behavioral concept with socioeconomic elements and impact.

*a biological community of living organisms (humans, animals, plants, and microbes) and their physical environment interacting as a system

Carolyn Hodo

Proliferative lesions associated with poxvirus in wild rodents
in Texas

Carolyn Hodo, a Texas A&M University PhD candidate in
Veterinary Pathobiology, attended the 2016 American College of
Veterinary Pathologists Annual Meeting in New Orleans,
Louisiana, December 3-7, 2016. Two of her abstracts were accepted.
She presented a poster on “Proliferative lesions associated with
poxvirus in wild rodents in Texas” and gave an oral presentation
entitled “Pathologic lesions and prevalence of Trypanosoma
cruzi in wild coyotes (Canis latrans) of Texas.”
Carolyn was mentored by Dr.
Sarah Hamer, Assistant Professor in the department of
Veterinary Integrative Biosciences, College of Veterinary Medicine
& Biomedical Sciences.

“I was especially excited to present the coyote work,” Carolyn
said, “as it is a part of my dissertation. I am working to
characterize the mammalian reservoirs of T. cruzi, the
agent of Chagas disease, which is a zoonotic vector-borne disease
of primarily humans and dogs. A number of wildlife species are
known to harbor the parasite, but little is known about the course
of infection in these species, or even whether they develop disease
as a result, “she noted. “My research showed that coyotes do
develop cardiac lesions similar to those seen in domestic dogs. I
am board certified in veterinary pathology, but have not attended
the ACVP meeting since transitioning to a full-time PhD student.
This was a great opportunity to blend my interests in zoonotic
vector-borne disease epidemiology with my training in
pathology.”

“Thanks to the One Health travel award, I was able to travel to
this conference to present my research and interact with others in
my field,“ Carolyn concluded. “I received feedback and make
connections which will lead to future collaborations. I also
attended a session discussing a new program called the Global
Health Pathology Network. Pathology has been under-recognized in
global health or One Health, but plays a major role in managing
disease in developing nations, where agriculture and wildlife
tourism often form the cornerstone of the economy. Attending this
meeting has further inspired me to blend my pathology knowledge
with epidemiology to make advances in One Health research.”

“Not only are Carolyn’s data on coyote infection with
Trypanosoma cruzi valuable from a wildlife health
perspective, but also because we think that spatial data on
wildlife infection can be useful for understanding the potential
threat of Chagas disease to humans,” Dr. Hamer noted. “Also,
coyotes are a natural or sylvatic model for domestic dogs, and we
know many domestic dog populations across the southern US are
impacted by Chagas disease. Carolyn has linked the severity of
cardiac pathology to the genetic strain of T. cruzi that has
infected the host, and it will be interesting to see if this
relationship holds across diverse wildlife species.”